


Wings

by skwishface



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Minor tweaks to canon timeline of events, Rated "Mature" for sexytimes, Rated "immature" for snark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:17:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3697127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skwishface/pseuds/skwishface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the tale of Shepard's incarceration after the Normandy's return to Alliance space, post ME2. Please forgive me a few minor tweaks to canon timeline and details. </p><p>This fic will be an ongoing writing exercise for me, exploring techniques and concepts including, but not limited to: third person narrative, non-linear story progression, and grown-up relationship crap. Also, occasional smut. Because of REASONS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Very Nice Prison

**Author's Note:**

> {From time to time, Shepard will have particularly vivid flashbacks. Those will be noted in italics. Future chapters will have flashbacks within flashbacks, and won't that be a formatting delight!}

The apartment was nice. Twice the size of her old cabin on the Normandy, with cheap government-issue furniture and narrow windows that could be opened to let in actual breezes of real Earth air. That had been a surprising luxury, likely allowed because the drop below the windows was a sheer plummet of twenty stories or more with no ledges or handholds of any kind. Not that she had been looking for escape routes; she just happened to observe this fact while admiring her fabulous view of the city.

The bed stubbornly refused to hum with the steady pulse of FTL drives, a fact which had led to a bout of insomnia that could only be defeated through rigorous application of single-malt scotch, but it was just the right size for one person and covered in fresh sheets every other day by a bustling little service mech with no vocalization module. A small kitchenette came furnished with a table and four chairs, seeming to imply that maybe she would have visitors. The size of her bed further implied that those visitors would not be the friendly sleep-over kind. She had ended up stacking three of the chairs and using them to stow her boots. It had never been a problem, because her only visitors were the service mech and her guards. Alliance Marines who were half in awe of their prisoner made for interesting jailers. They always offered to pass her requests for things like extranet access up the chain of command, and when they delivered the refusal they did it with a salute.

As incarcerations went, it was very polite. Damn near negligent. And terminally frustrating. She was a compulsive do-er with nothing to do but spend a lot of time alone with her thoughts.

_"I cannot explain the how of it, Siha," the rasp of his voice was like stones tumbling, "Perfect recall is not something that is done, it is something that simply is. Can you describe to me the exact process of human dreaming?"_

_In the darkness of her cabin, the cool light of the aquarium (occupied only by water and plants; she couldn't bring herself to forget another fish to death) made her hand glow like some deep sea creature as it traced idle fingertips along the ridge of his collarbone. Where her skin reflected the light, the fine scales of his seemed to absorb it, making him a creature of shadows and hush. "Sure I can. We fall asleep, then some time later the REM cycle kicks on and we dream."_

_He waited. So silent that only her ear against his chest told her that his heart still beat, his lungs still breathed … steady and clear, particularly since she'd asked EDI to filter her cabin's enviro-controls for minimum humidity. He waited, knowing she wouldn't be able to tolerate the inadequacy of her own answer for long. And he was right; she heard herself trying to explain, "REM cycle, as in Rapid Eye Movement." His smile was a smug shadow that earned him a poke in the ribs. "It's when our brains slip into … some kind of an active subconscious state that … makes our eyes move a lot? Okay fine, I have no idea how dreaming works."_

_Semi-fused fingers gently caressed her hair as he sagely intoned, "Admission of ignorance is the first step to enlightenment."_

_She propped up on one elbow, the better to narrow-eyed-gaze down at him. "I'm beginning to think you make up these little fortune cookie sayings just to mock me."_

_“Do not be ridiculous, Siha. I have no idea what a fortune cookie is." Nobody could do deadpan like an assassin._

_"Alright then, oh mysterious one," she flung the tangled sheet aside, sliding bare legs over his to sit astride his hips, "if you can't explain it, then maybe we can reverse engineer it."_

_"How do you propose we - " his words trailed off on a purring rumble as a flex of muscled thighs and a sway of spine brought their bodies deeply together._

_"Tell me, Thane," a gasp threaded her words, hips arching in time to the subtle urgings of strong hands, "How exactly will you remember … this?"_

A sharp knock at her door could only be one particular guard. Nobody else bothered to knock on a door that could only be opened from the outside by an omni-tool with the right security clearance. And nobody else ever seemed to interrupt her more, ah, private reveries.

"C'mon in, James," she called from where she leaned against her kitchen counter, holding a cup of coffee. She took a sip and sighed inwardly; it had gone cold at some point.

The door slid open to reveal Lieutenant James Vega. Well, most of him. The man was so big that he had to turn slightly sideways and duck his head a little to step through the door. He had a face like a boxer's fist, all scars and knobby bones designed to hurt people. Some guys had to put on their war face; for James, it was his default facial expression. If it was a mask, it was a good one. A hard one. For the past too-many weeks, she had amused herself by poking at that mask, trying to find out if there was anyone behind it but the pile of mean muscle he looked to be.

He stepped to the center of the room, boots surprisingly light on the tile floor, and snapped a salute. She returned it by lifting her mug. "You're not supposed to salute me, James. Remember?"

"Yes, Commander." He settled to standing at attention.

A long sip of (sigh, cold) coffee and an arched eyebrow let her play out the kind of silence that had been known to reduce enlisted hardasses to sweating schoolboys. James weathered it like a champ.

For about ninety seconds.

When she added a tiny slurp to her second sip, he broke. "Permission to ask a question, Commander?"

"James, I couldn't give you permission to submit to the force of gravity right now. You don't have to ask if you can ask. You can just ask."

One corner of his mouth twitched. She mentally chalked a point on her side of the imaginary scoreboard. The other side was for Cerberus, the Geth, the Reapers, and dumb bad luck. They had a lot more chalk marks on their side of the board than she did on hers, so every little victory counted. James cracked his neck to the left, flashing the slim outlines of an incomplete tattoo on his neck peeking out over the top of his uniform collar. His vertebrae sounded off like little gunshots, and the sound seemed to release him to stand at-ease.

"How d'you always know it's me at the door, ma'am?" His steady baritone was still as professionally cool as ever, but she didn't miss the relaxing of his syntax.

"I have contraband surveillance equipment placed at key points throughout this facility," she deadpanned. "The data feeds to various sub-dermal implants on my body."

He blinked. Frowned. "Security scans would've picked up anything like that."

She shrugged. "Only if they know where to look. I have to take off my left boot to check audio feeds."

James glanced down at the foot in question. His dark-eyed gaze was as frankly suspicious as his tone. "The left boot? … Ma'am."

Her nod was solemn, "You wouldn't believe what it takes to check video. I have to get two mirrors, go in the bathroom, and drop my -"

"Commander!" His hands went up in surrender, or to stop whatever she'd been about to say. Eyes wide, the big Marine looked downright scandalized, "You're shi- .. uh, kiddin' me, right?"

Tip of a wink, "Gotcha, Vega." He shook his head in disbelief, broad shoulders rolling like boulders as he braced hands on hips. She gave herself five more points on the scoreboard. Joker would've been proud. Pouring the coffee out into the sink helped cover the sudden pang of missing her mouthy helmsman. "Now. Surely there was some official reason for coming to see me today."

"Right," James didn't quite snap to attention, but it was close. "The Admirals are requesting your presence."

Wry humor twisted her brow, "It's nice when they say 'request'. Makes it sound like I can say no if I want to."

"Well, you can say no, ma'am," James pointed out.

"But then you'd be obligated to change my mind."

"Ma'am."

They had one of those moments, where two people who know they're good take the measure of one another. James was huge, like a brick wall had become a person, but she hadn't missed how lightly he moved. He'd be quicker than he looked. Slabs of muscle along his back and across his waist spoke of someone who had trained mostly in heavy weapons, the kind that seemed hellbent on punishing you for pulling the trigger. Punches could rain down on that torso all day and he wouldn't feel a thing. In a hand-to-hand confrontation, she would have to move fast to incapacitate him and hope that he hadn't been briefed on the extent of the cybernetic upgrades added since her resurrection. Either that, or outlast him in the hopes that his endurance would give out before her heavy bone weave did.

A fight between herself and Lieutenant Vega would be nasty, brutish, and anything but short. Realistically, she gave herself even odds. Being locked up in this very nice apartment had her almost bored enough to want to pick that fight, if only for something new to think about. Ruthlessly, she squashed the impulse. Her crew were in the wind out there in a galaxy that was woefully, desperately unprepared for the war that was coming. The last thing she needed to do was give the Alliance any more excuses to distrust her.

Jaw set at a grim angle, she nodded to the door. "Lead on, James."

Whatever conclusions he had come to in his assessment of her were hidden behind the meathead Marine mask, firmly back in place. "Aye, Commander."


	2. Loyalty of Omission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein some pointed questions are asked, and answered (also pointedly).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {This particular version of Shepard is prone to vivid flashbacks, depicted in this story through clever use of italics.}

There are ways to set the tone of a meeting before any words are spoken. Things can be done, from the arrangement of the furniture to the angles of the lighting, to give whatever impression the person calling the meeting intended to give. Home field advantage.

Shepard's first post-Collectors meeting with Alliance authorities had been on board the Normandy, in a brightly-lit comm room with a roundish table and no chairs. In that room, everyone was clearly visible and equally uncomfortable. There was no place of precedence in that space, so long as the center of the room was being used for tactical displays rather than yet another infuriating conversation with the Illusive Man. The meeting had been a hurried affair, Alliance personnel scrambling to react to the news that the fabled Normandy was on her way in to dock with a bare skeleton crew and none other than the walking ghost of Commander Shepard on board. She'd had EDI send a discreet heads-up message to Anderson at his Council office on the Citadel in the faint hope that he might be able to help her stick the metaphorical landing at Alliance HQ.

Anderson had not disappointed. The swell of relief she'd felt when his tall, dark form strode into the Normandy's comm room had nearly choked her. Whatever she had expected, it hadn’t been for him to show up personally, ready to bull-rush the Alliance legal system and land right in the middle of anyone who dared suggest that Shepard was anything less than a hero. In one long meeting, she had been debriefed, then turned herself and the Normandy over to Alliance custody. Hopefully the ship was having more fun than she was; there was no way it could be having less.

Her second meeting had happened days later, in the hyper-sterile whiteness of the most advanced medical clinic she had ever seen. Strapped to an anti-grav gurney that lifted and turned however the Chief Medical Officer who was conducting the session saw fit, Shepard was crystal clear that in that particular case she was the subject of the discussion rather than a participant. Admiral Anderson presided along with the doctor, a reedy man named Patil, and another Admiral who Shepard only knew by name.

Admiral Sakai. A tiny woman, softspoken, straight-spined despite the age that creased her face and threaded her jet-black hair with silver. Hers was a name that every Alliance recruit had to learn during basic training, along with everyone else in the top brass. The fact that Shepard had memorized her name (if not much else; she vaguely recalled something about Sakai being involved with the Luna training facilities) said something about just how long the Admiral had held her position. Everyone deferred to her, even Anderson.

Endless scans and diagrams had accompanied that session, more medical lecture than debrief. Dr. Patil had clearly been fascinated with Shepard from a scientific point of view, making her decide that if, when she inevitably bought the big farm in the sky, he would put in a formal request to strip her bones for parts. And if that request was denied, he’d probably dig her up anyway. Not that she could blame him. She had some top shelf gear under her skin. The doctor conducted scan after scan, displaying the findings in bigger-than-life holo so that the Admirals could follow in real-time. Shepard got to see color-coded images of her innards and listen to an exhaustive cataloging of all the cybernetics that Cerberus had used to cobble her corpse back together, all while sometimes twirling slowly or hanging upside-down.

At random intervals, one of the Admirals would lob questions at her. Who had been her first commanding officer, describe the weather conditions during the approach to Ilos, and so on. All clearly intended to test the truth of her identity in distracting and uncomfortable circumstances. She never did find out what conclusions they had come to.

Now, weeks later, she was following James's broad back down increasingly impressive hallways. Two Marines, armed and armored, set a rear guard on her and kept pace. The presence of armed guards was familiar, but the armor itself was new. Buffed and spit-shined. They looked very official. A wry suspicion started to form in her mind that was confirmed as soon as she stepped in to the meeting room.

Three figures were seated at a raised dais, lights on the desk before each of them intended to cast their features in authoritarian shadows. On one of them, it nearly worked - an older man whom she didn't recognize, with dark eyes that tried to stare holes through her. A quick glance at his uniform told her he was a Vice-Admiral. On the other two, the effect was wasted. Anderson tipped his chin downward as he caught her eye, his neutral expression fully illuminated so that she could not miss the significant weight to his gaze. He was trying to warn her of something, but there was no way to tell what. Admiral Sakai glowed in her light, an island of calm placed in the center of the dais between the two men.

Somehow, tiny Admiral Sakai was the same height as Anderson and the other guy. Out of habit, Shepard turned her head slightly to murmur a comment to Garrus. ("What is she, sitting on a phone book?" she would snark. And then Garrus would have to ask what a phone book is, and she would explain, and he would have something mocking to say about the human obsession with printing ink onto pieces of wood pulp, and they would end up laughing together not nearly as quietly as they thought they were and generally being the most obnoxious pair in the room.) But the presence at behind her was not her turian friend, but a Marine who probably wouldn't think she was very funny. So she kept her mouth shut and tried not to twitch her shoulder against the sudden emptiness she felt at her back.

The arrangement of the room didn't help with that. In the center of the semi-dark space there was a plain metal rail, the kind that kept people from walking into galaxy maps and other holo projectors. The small space in front of that rail was illuminated by a spotlight from above. James gestured silently to that little pool of light, and she pressed her lips together to keep from snorting. So this was how it was going to be? The Tribunal seated comfortably on high, and herself, the accused, humbled to stand below them and face their judgment.

The imagery was too heavy-handed to have been Admiral Sakai's design, and too antagonistic to come from Anderson. That left the mysterious Vice-Admiral.

Shepard stepped into her pool of light and snapped off a salute. It wasn't returned because it didn't have to be.

"Thank you for joining us today, Commander Shepard," Admiral Sakai greeted, her voice as calm and measured as Shepard recalled from their last encounter.

Shepard settled to at-ease and gave a single nod. "Ma'am."

"Before we begin," Admiral Anderson's rich baritone rolled through the room. "I feel it is my duty to remind everyone in this room that Commander Shepard is not now, nor has she ever been, considered an enemy combatant.”

Shepard blinked. Just what the hell had she walked into?

The Vice-Admiral’s brow clouded, as though Anderson was speaking out of turn. His dark gaze did not leave Shepard, though, "I merely proposed the formalization of an investigation that has, up to this point, been lackadaisical at best.”

"Formalizing this investigation is one thing, but declaring a Tribunal would be tantamount to branding Shepard a traitor." Anderson's volume was rising, but it rang oddly to Shepard. An ear trained to the intricacies of turian sub-chords had no trouble picking out human subtexts: Anderson was picking this fight for her benefit, so she would know what was brewing behind the scenes.

The Vice-Admiral slid his gaze away from Shepard and turned to face Anderson, his voice brimming with mild venom, "I would think you would appreciate the significance of a Tribunal, as it would add legitimacy to your case that the Alliance is on the brink of some mysterious war. If you would prefer a formalization that merely establishes that former-Commander Shepard is officially extant, we can proceed with a court-martial, instead. Legal accountability would be satisfied either way.”

"Gentlemen," Admiral Sakai's serene tone forestalled whatever retort Anderson had been about to growl out. "The purpose of convening today is neither to debate the nature of these proceedings, nor to establish Commander Shepard's status. Vice-Admiral Williams, I will have my staff forward the transcripts of our second session to your office, so that you may review them."

Williams? Surely not … "That won't be necessary, Admiral."

"Then let the record show that it has already been established that, in all ways relevant and medically provable, the woman before us today is the same Commander Shepard who was killed in action and went down with her ship nearly three years ago." Good to know. Somehow, Admiral Sakai's so-calm voice made that impossible fact sound commonplace, "She is to be accorded the same consideration as any Alliance officer in these proceedings."

"Agreed." Anderson rapped a knuckle on his desk for emphasis.

The Vice-Admiral, who was starting to look a bit familiar with his dark eyes and strong jaw, gave a stiff nod. "Understood."

"Commander Shepard." There was a very slight note of reproach in Admiral Sakai's tone that said she was finally being allowed to return to what she had been about to say at the beginning, when Anderson interrupted. "The purpose of today's inquiry is to explore the nature of the squad that assisted you in your recent endeavors. Are you prepared to answer any and all questions presented to you?"

Ah-ha, so that was what Anderson had been trying to warn her about. He damn well knew that her team had been full of folks who were (she imagined Garrus offering up descriptors: Colorful? Violent? Wanted for crimes that would make an Elcor weep?) no longer on record with the Normandy, or at most of the locations that the Normandy and her crew had visited while working with Cerberus. EDI had been very thorough. Now it was time for Shepard to corroborate that lack of information.

Shepard nodded, her face schooled to proper N7 stoicism. "Yes ma'am."

Vice-Admiral Williams picked up a second datapad, but did not look at it. Instead, he skewered Shepard with a shadowed gaze. It might have been intimidating if she hadn't already gone toe-to-toe with … hell, she tried to think of just one person she had confronted in the past three years who was more scary than Williams, but the list just kept going on and on. She reminded herself that this man had earned his rank, and had a power over her that she had agreed to submit to by returning to the Alliance, so she had better get over herself and start listening.

"Our tactical experts have reviewed the data that you delivered regarding the assault on this alleged Collector base," Vice-Admiral Williams began, "and they have come to the conclusion that you simply could not have successfully assaulted a facility of that magnitude with the squad that you claim to have had."

After a polite pause to ensure he was done speaking, she matter-of-factly asked, "Sir, did your tactical experts account for the technical finesse of a salarian scientist and a quarian machinist prodigy?"

Williams was ready with an answer, "Mordin Solus's service records are sealed by STG -"

Anderson interjected, "Which should speak volumes on its own."

Williams ignored him, "- and as for the other, I assume that you are referring to Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya?"

He tapped at the datapad, and a pale blue glow started on the floor just beyond the rail that she stood by. Sure enough, it was a holo projector. An image of Tali's face (er, her helmet) appeared to float in the space between Shepard and the Tribunal. Shepard recognized it from the dossiers in the Normandy's roster, the weirdly candid photo with the sassy head-tilt that no Cerberus photographer could have prompted Tali to do. Not for the first time, Shepard idly wondered if EDI had gone data-mining in the Shadow Broker's files.

A small shake of her head, "No, sir. I am referring to Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. When she was exiled from the Migrant Fleet, she took the name of the ship that she served on."

That earned her a frown from the Vice-Admiral. "Do you honestly expect us to believe that a quarian would take the name of a human ship?"

"It was her home, sir," she gave the pure, simple fact.

"Preposterous!"

Anderson held up a hand, "I believe Commander Shepard's claim is corroborated by the Migrant Fleet's response to our requests for Tali'Zorah's service record."

Williams turned to face him, "We can hardly consider their inquiry as to when the Normandy will be returning to active duty to be a response."

"Specifically, with Commander Shepard as ‘Captain’," Anderson pointed out.

Admiral Sakai, smooth as silk, brought the conversation back on track. "Regardless, the Migrant Fleet's records of Tali'Zorah's abilities would be out of date in comparison to the testimonies of the engineers with whom she served during her time aboard the Normandy."

Admiral Anderson consulted his own datapad, "Her current competence has been rated higher than most Alliance engineers can hope to achieve in a full career."

Vice-Admiral Williams waved a dismissive hand, "By Engineers Daniels and Donnelly, both of whom are under investigation, themselves, for their defection to Cerberus. Their assessment is suspect, at best. Even if we were to take them at their word, it still would not account for the ease with which former-Commander Shepard claims to have taken this alleged Collector base."

Ease, he said. He thought they had taken the base with ease. Shepard's jaw clenched as the memory flashed behind her eyes.

_Tali was in the thermal vent, sickly green translucent panels providing just enough glimpses of the little quarian for her small fire team to keep apace. Roar of a shotgun melds with a Krogan's war-bellow, Grunt plowing ahead, the blunt and unstoppable tip of their spear. Crack-crack of a sniper rifle was the only sound Thane made, announcing the elegant demise of two more Collector drones. Comms crackled, Tali reporting yet another obstruction in the vent._

_"Not much good as a vent, is it? All those obstructions seem to defeat the purpose," Garrus on comms, taking a moment from leading his own team to put in his two cents. Tali quipped back, and Shepard didn't shush them. Trapped and defenseless in a rapidly heating tube, Tali needed all the reassuring banter she could get. And if Garrus had time to crack wise, then his team was doing just fine. Comforting her and Tali in one fell snark; the turian was nothing if not efficient. She held back her own retort so that she could keep an ear open to the firefight around her, listening and waiting for ..._

_Not yet, apparently. Mattock a familiar weight against her shoulder, she sent a brief spray of incendiary rounds to keep the drones' heads down while she broke from cover, confident that Thane would protect the rest of her movement without needing to be told. Sub-audible whomp of biotics and an insectoid screech behind her, and she grinned. He had a poetic way of punishing enemies who tried to shoot her in the back. Bullets were too good for them; crushed organs and broken bones were better._

_Armored shoulder punched the button that would release the obstruction as she turned to face the firefight once more. Tali warbled a relieved thanks and moved on through the vent. And then the shit hit the fan._

_"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL." There he was._

_The walls suddenly boiled with Collectors, pouring down on her team, blocking her shot on the one that was suddenly glowing with Reaper influence. Noise poured into Shepard's ears._

_Grunt roared a challenge, trying to carve a path through the enemy throng and failing. There were just so damn many of them. Garrus barked over comms that his team was meeting heavy resistance. Collectors screeched, biotics hummed, bullets pinged on walls and zapped her shields to pin her to cover and keep her from advancing. Through it all, there was Tali's increasingly frantic voice over comms reporting yet another obstruction that left her trapped and cooking alive in that damned vent._

_Shepard gritted her teeth, added to the cacophony by lobbing two grenades into the mass, then leaped from cover and ran like hell for the next button. Claws scrabbled over her armor, but she didn't bother trying to fight them. Too busy running. A glowing carapace suddenly loomed in her path, the Collector being puppeted by the Reaper intelligence and determined to kill her, just her. To Harbinger, Shepard was the prime target. Her furious instincts screamed at her to kill him just as Tali screamed in fear and pain. It wasn't even a choice. Shepard ducked to the side, rolled past the Harbinger-puppet and kept running._

_Harsh buzz of her shields failing, sharp impact of bullets finally hitting her armor, piercing through to her flesh, but all she could hear was Tali's screams. She dove, heedless of the chaos around her, rolling at the last moment to strike the button with her shoulder. The obstruction released, Tali sobbed in relief, and Shepard turned to come face-to-face with Harbinger._

Yes, that had been so easy. Vice-Admiral Williams was old enough to have fought at Shanxi, where humans and turians had first discovered a mutual talent for bloodshed. For him to scorn the hell that her squad had gone through in fighting a new and frightening alien threat ... it could only be a deliberate provocation. With an effort, she unclenched her jaw. She could not afford to rise to that bait.

Time to stay focused on protecting the people who had helped her. "Do the Alliance tactical experts have a way to quantify the impact of an asari Justicar on a battlefield?"

Williams pressed his lips together. He didn't like this particular point. Admiral Sakai lifted her own datapad, and with a few delicate finger-touches called up a series of graphs to the holo projector. Lines in blue for the asari, and white for the Alliance. The graphs were very telling, but Sakai verbalized the results anyway, "As you can all see, in matters of biotic power the average asari commando exceeds all known human military standards."

"I think it's safe to assume that Justicar Samara is well above average," Anderson rumbled. "She offered her service record without being asked, you know. Centuries of data. I had to task two aides to analyzing it 'round the clock, and they're still not done. But what they've reported so far is … impressive."

"Chilling, is more like it," corrected Williams. "That asari is a killer."

"Precisely," Shepard agreed. "In her own way, Justicar Samara is the most principled, controlled warrior I've ever met." A pause, there, as she let the Tribunal consider the full spectrum of warriors met by Commander Shepard. "And she is an undeniable juggernaut of biotic ability. She was an unstoppable force of authority and justice in asari space when humans were still trying to turn lead into gold and burning witches at the stake."

"Your point, Shepard?" Williams sounded bored.

"Sir, my point is that my squad was extraordinary. Every last one of them." Anderson took his cue, tapped his datapad, and suddenly the holo projector was wiped of graphs and displayed dossier photos. Shepard pointed at each image in turn as she spoke, her voice taking on the subtly fierce cadence of command as memories of farewells whispered in the back of her mind:

"Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and Justicar Samara, you already know. Jacob Taylor and Miranda Lawson: Cerberus operatives, competent in the extreme regardless of their affiliation. Doctor Mordin Solus, in his spare time he cured a plague that had been engineered by the Collectors to kill all non-humans on Omega. ..."  
_"Glad to have been here, Shepard. Honor. Have taken Collector tissue samples. Will study forced evolution from Protheans, prepare for possible imminent Reaper invasion."_

"... Urdnot Grunt, genetically engineered to meet the Krogan standard of perfection. ..."  
_"We can leave Okeer's genetic tinkering out of it," she offered. He gave that slow chuckle, "Heh heh heh. If they wanna make somethin' of it, let 'em come. If the rest of your Alliance is like you, they'll make worthy enemies for Clan Urdnot."_

"... Flight Lieutenant Moreau, the best damn pilot the Alliance has. Period. ..."  
_Silence in the cockpit as the Normandy made her final approach to the Alliance dock. Shepard had a hundred last minute prep things to do before handing her ship over, but she couldn’t seem to move her feet. Joker tosses a grin over his shoulder, “Don’t worry, Commander. EDI’s got a plan to keep me around. They’ll never get rid of me. I’ll be like space herpes.”_

"... And Garrus Vakarian, the finest officer C-Sec ever lost. He helped me take down Saren, and Sovereign, and now the Collectors. ..."  
_"Where will you go?" she asked, striving for casual. He saw right through her, like always, his mandibles flicking in a dry chuckle, "Not back to Omega, if that's what you're asking. Think I'll go home, to Palaven. Try and get somebody, anybody, to listen to our crazy story. And Shepard …" his hand rested on her shoulder, hesitated a moment before sliding to cradle the back of her neck in warmth, "... take care."_

"... Every last one of them followed me through the Omega-4 relay and into the mouth of Hell itself, because they knew they weren’t just fighting for the lives of a few thousand human colonists. They were fighting for the whole damn galaxy. And every last one of them came back. Because they are all. That. Good."

Shepard squared her shoulders and leveled a stare at the middle distance, “And with all due respect, sirs, I would appreciate it if their bravery was not downplayed.”

The Admirals sat in silence. Anderson gave her a barely perceptible nod. Admiral Sakai was inscrutable, gaze flickering over the holo images. Williams stared at Shepard, his jaw set in a hard line that was heartachingly familiar. She knew that look; the last time she had seen it had been on Virmire. He drew breath to speak, and when he did it didn't much matter to Shepard any more. He was going on about rumors that Garrus had actually been the vigilante known as Archangel, but Shepard made no comment. She didn't have to - Sakai was already pointing out that Council law did not extend to Omega, and Anderson was retorting that if Garrus had been a vigilante targeting criminal organizations that it spoke in favor of his character rather than against it.

The meeting was all over but the shouting. The important thing was that five particular names never did come up. Kasumi Goto, Zaeed Masani, Thane Krios, Jack, and Legion. Four criminals and one impossible ally, gone as if they had never set foot aboard the Normandy. EDI had been very thorough, indeed.

Their omission stung. Anyone who had shed blood on the other side of the Omega-4 relay deserved to be recognized. Unfortunately, the Alliance tended to frown upon little things like professional thievery and murder, so her comrades had chosen discretion in the Terminus systems as the better part of valor. She couldn’t blame them.

The best way that she could honor each of the people who had risked it all on a suicide run into uncharted space was to stick it out through this investigation. It was imperative that the Alliance trust her, or they wouldn't believe the Reapers were a threat until it was too late. If that meant weathering a few top brass harangues, then that’s what she would do. But she wouldn’t let her people be belittled, even if they’d never know about it.

On the way back to her quarters, having been dismissed by Admirals who wanted to talk about things that she shouldn’t overhear, Shepard noticed a change in her guards. The three Marines had been in the room throughout the session, standing at mute ease. They had, however, been listening.

The two Marines who had maintained such a wary watch at her back now kept pace evenly at her flanks. James kept to the front, but shifted a step to one side, leading without obstructing. Taking point. They moved like a squad in formation with her, rather than Marines protecting the rest of the world from her.

After long weeks of solitude, of facing the repercussions of her actions alone, the change loosened something in her chest. Shepard took her first deep breath since stepping off the Normandy. She could do this.


	3. Official Recommendation

_Admiral,_

_Please find attached partial transcripts of my meetings with Commander Shepard. Unfortunately, I will have to deny your request for the complete audio files of all sessions, citing doctor-patient privilege. I’m sure you understand._

_\- Dr. Laura Wall_

 

_ Begin transcript of Session 1: Dr. Wall eval. Cmdr. Shepard: _

 

Wall: “Please, have a seat, Commander. Can I get you anything? Water, tea, coffee?”

Shepard: “No thanks, I’m fine.” 

Wall: “Good, let’s jump right into it, then. Do I have your consent to record this session?”

Shepard: “You’re already recording.”

W: “Correct. So I can either record your consent and we move forward, or I can record your refusal and get an early lunch.”

S: “What’s for lunch?”

W: “Whatever Lieutenant Vega can scrounge up from the mess hall for you. Pretty sure it’s salisbury steak day.”

S: “Well, can’t say I’m in a hurry to get to that. So … yes, I consent to recording.”

W: “Excellent. Doctor Laura Wall, psychological evaluation of Commander Jane Shepard, first session. … Commander Shepard, why do you think you’re here?”

S: “I was ordered to report for psych eval.”

W: “You must have some thoughts on that order.”

S: “Are you asking if I question my orders, Doctor?”

W: “Commander, you’re N7. I’d be worried if you didn’t question your orders, at least a little bit. So I’ll ask again: Commander, why do you think you’re here?”

S: “Because somebody wants the boot that kicks me in the ass on my way out to have ‘cat six’ stamped on the sole.”

W: “Do you think you qualify for a Category Six dishonorable discharge? … Unfortunately, this is a strictly audio recording. Your facial expression won’t translate very well. Would you mind, please, verbally answering the -”

S: “No. I do not qualify for cat six. I am perfectly sane, thank you.”

W: “Oh. Well then, since it’s a well known fact that everyone is a fair and impartial judge of their own mental well-being, I guess we’re done here. And I should probably find a new job.”

S: “Sarcasm probably doesn’t translate very well on the recording, either.”

W: “You’d be amazed.”

S: “Go ahead and ask your questions, Doctor.”

W: “Thank you, Commander. Don’t mind if I do. How are you sleeping?”

S: “Horizontally.”

W: “When I was a kid, we used to spend all summer living on my Grandpa’s boat. Just us and the wind and the Gulf. I’d go back to school in the fall brown as a nut from all the sun, and completely exhausted. It’d take me weeks to get used to trying to sleep on a bed that didn’t rock with the waves. I imagine it’s about the same, going from ship life to planetside.”

S: “You’d imagine right.”

W: “So how are you sleeping?”

S: “Well enough.”

W: “Any dreams, night sweats, sleep-walking?”

S: “Do sleep-walkers know if they’re sleep-walking? Or do they just sleep through it?”

W: “That’s an excellent question. Studies remain inconclusive.”

S: “I’m sure you have access to my quarters’ surveillance logs. So you tell me: am I sleepwalking?”

W: (noncommittal humming sound)

(0:67 of the sound of a datapad beeping)

W: “You know, most patients would have asked me what I’m writing by now.”

S: “I know that trick, too.”

W: “Oh? What trick?”

S: “The one where you let silence play out to see what people will say to fill it. You should write that down.”

W: “Noted. So, you dodged the dream question. Let’s move on to the stuff I’m required to ask. How’s your sex life?”

S: “Again, I refer you to my quarters’ surveillance logs.”

W: “Prior to your incarceration. Have you had intimate relations with members of the opposite gender?”

(0:13 of silence)

W: “Commander?”

S: “I’m trying to decide if by ‘intimate’ you mean actual physical copulation. Because I know that your next question is going to be asking whether or not I’ve had intimate relations with a member of the same gender, and the semantics matter.”

W: “Why don’t you tell me what the semantics should be, and we’ll go with that.”

S: “Well, there’s intimate and then there’s sex. It’s entirely possible to have one without the other. There are women in this galaxy who have seen me more naked than any male sexual partner has, and we never took off a stitch. But that’s beside the point.”

W: “And what is the point?”

S: “That my sexual history can not possibly be relevant to the question of my fitness for duty.”

W: “Have you ever had intimate relations with a member of a non-human sentient species?”

S: “Have you?”

 

_ End Transcript _

 

 

_ Begin Transcript, Session 4: Dr. Wall eval. Cmdr. Shepard _

 

Wall: “Commander Shepard. Back from the dead. Bane of the Collectors. Hero of the Citadel. First human Spectre.”

Shepard: “Also a fantastic dancer.”

Wall: “Really?”

Shepard: “No.”

W: “Ah, so no risk of you ending up shimmying on a pole in Omega if the Alliance boots you.”

S: “I doubt T’Loak would have me.”

W: “You could always go work for the Council. I’m sure they’d reinstate your Spectre status.”

S: “I doubt they’d have me, either.”

W: “Why is that?”

S: “We disagree on things.”

W: “What things?”

S: “Yes.”

W: “I see. And yet you saved them. … What does that frown mean?”

S: “I didn’t save anybody. The Fifth Fleet did that.”

W: “On your order.”

S: “Admiral Hackett would be mighty surprised to hear that he wasn’t the one giving orders that day.”

W: “Your advice, then.”

S: “Yes. I advised Hackett to save the Destiny Ascension.”

W: “Did you know what the cost would be?”

S: “I did the math.”

W: “A lot of good Alliance soldiers lost their lives on that advice.”

S: “What are you getting at, Doctor? That I threw away human lives to save aliens? You’re better than that.”

W: “I’m just trying to assess your comprehension of the cost of command decisions.”

S: “To see if the names of all those dead soldiers haunt me at night? No. There are too many names to remember them all; I’m not that smart. But I do remember the names of each ship that burned for my decision. Would you like for me to list them?”

W: “I don’t think that will be -”

S: “Shenyang, Emden, Jakarta, Cairo -”

W: “Shepard -”

S: “Seoul, Capetown, Warsaw, Madrid. Would you like to hear the names of the twenty turian cruisers that were lost? They’re a little trickier to pronounce, but if they could take the time to die then surely we could take the time to say their names right.”

 

_End transcript_

 

_Admiral,_

_It is my professional assessment, garnered over multiple in-depth sessions such as those included, that Commander Shepard is of sound mind and fully cognizant of the responsibilities of command. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. I will be making my official recommendation for reinstatement._

_\- Dr. Wall_

 


	4. Haunted House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {For reasons that will eventually be made clear, this Shepard experiences particularly vivid flashes of memory. These are the italicized bits in the narrative.}

Frigid wind skirled snow around armored boots as she hunted among the bones of a dead ship for the shiny bits of metal that were the only remnants of her crew. The cold pierced through her, clawing the warmth from her body with covetous fingers. Jingle of metal, a pile of dogtags filling her hand, overflowing and scattering across the ice. She scrambled to catch them but the cold made her slow.

Clumsy.

Her knees hit hard when she fell, cracking greaves too frozen to bear her weight. Armor crumbled and fell away, icy air poured in to every crevice, furious ghostly hands eager to peel away her living protections and drag her into the cold. Where she belonged.

Tears froze to her cheeks. Gasps hauled crystals of stabbing cold into sluggish lungs through gritted teeth.

Numb fingers pawed at the tags, trying to gather them even as she died.

Again.

Wind tumbled a piece of debris towards her, bouncing eagerly across the ice with a hollow staccato. It thumped and slid the last few meters to stop a hairsbreadth from her face, and she recognized her old N7 helmet. The one that had betrayed her, had snapped its oxygen line and suffocated her as she kicked and fought against the silent void just outside her suit.

Slowly, almost sensually, the helmet’s mask began to slide upward. She tried to push away, to scrabble backward away from her murderer on limbs that no longer had feeling.

The mask snapped open. Inside, the dark was bottomless.

 

Shepard woke with a gasp. Sat bolt upright and grasped the edges of her bed with crushing fingers. The room's enviro-controls clicked on in response to her movement, and the real world came into focus. Light and warmth and windows just starting to glow with pre-dawn light. Sweat-tangled sheets, plain walls, white noise hum of a building full of people waking up outside of those walls.

Alone. Small bed, nobody with her. No disembodied AI voice to answer a plea for reassurance disguised as a simple call for spatial position and ETA to the next relay. She could ping the door and summon one of her guards just to see another person's face, but then she would have to explain herself and "I had a bad dream" was about as likely to make it past her lips as one of Mordin's showtunes.

This was clearly Dr. Wall’s fault, with her probing questions about Shepard’s resurrection, hunting for signs of lingering trauma. The doc had yet to find any such trace because, frankly, Shepard had forgotten about the dream. It had dogged her sleep after the trip to Alchera, but there had always been something on hand to distract her. Paperwork, sex, crew disputes, evading one man's Machiavellian pit-traps, missions to save humanity from being abducted and ground into chum for a race of giant robot space monsters, stuff like that. Now she lacked for any of those things.

With a grunt, she hauled her ass out of bed and stared balefully at her entirely distraction-free quarters. She would have to improvise. Move the body, remember that it's alive. Move the brain, remember the facts because the dream was a lie.

She wasn't much of a liar when it came to other people, but apparently when she was asleep she could lie to herself just fine.

Clammy sweat-soaked skivvies were peeled off and replaced with Alliance-issue PT clothes. All of the known galaxy at their disposal, and the human military had found nothing better than cotton shirts and drawstring shorts. Calisthenics were her only option for exercise (no equipment had been provided, presumably to prevent her from carving a treadmill into a really big shiv), so she moved to the center of her living space and launched into the regimen that had been drilled into her body since basic training.

That had been a shock, one of many she'd absorbed in the first days after coming back to life. She hadn't expected her "new" body to have the muscle-memory of the original; the first time that she automatically transitioned from lunges to push-ups was also the first time that she got to visit Dr. Chakwas in her official capacity. Turns out, when your hands are too surprised to catch you on your way to the floor, less qualified body parts get the job. Like the face.

Limbs moving smoothly through exertions as old as human military itself, Shepard was able to focus her thoughts. Review what had really happened on that frozen heap of a planet. Catalog the truths to banish the lie of the dream.

 **Truth:**  though she would never admit it aloud, she had put off visiting the Normandy SR-1's crash site for as long as she could. But as the odds of surviving what the galaxy was throwing at them started looking slimmer, she knew that she had to do it before there was no one left who could. Every offer to accompany her to Alchera's surface had been turned down. Some more forcefully than others. Some repeatedly. She could see the hurt in Joker at being left behind, hear it in his parting quip ("Bring back souvenirs!"). There wasn't a lot of gentleness in Shepard, but she had used every ounce she had on him, for all the good it had done. The planet's surface was all ice, though; a bad place for a brittle skeleton to walk.

_Standing in the center of her old ship's corpse, she was bitterly glad to be alone. It felt right. A haunted house should only be wandered by its ghosts._

_Radio silence was the unspoken protocol for that particular mission. No sound met her ears but the whistling of the wind._

**Truth:**  the wind had that slightly tinny quality of her helmet's auditory sensors, not the fierce howl of the dream. The cold had no hope of reaching her through armor designed to withstand open space. Inside her suit, she had been warm and comfortable and safe. And she always would be, so long as no ships exploded violently around her and severed her O2 line.

_Hours had passed while she sifted through the snow and rubble, walking under hull struts that arched above her like the ribs of some immense beast. A star whale, beached and wounded and helpless, bleeding out on a strange shore. Shepard had dusted the frost from a piece of hull plating that bore the letter N of her old ship's name and whispered, "I'm sorry."_

_The hollow buzz in her right ear reminded her that the comm channel was live. Anyone listening would hear her. So she swallowed the rest of her words and tried to express them all simply through the pressure of her hand on the hull, briefly wishing that she could strip the glove and touch the frozen metal. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry you died alone out here. I'm sorry you're alive again, up in the stars, new and improved and expected to carry on with the fight and forget that you had ever been anything else. I'm sorry for you, and for me, too. And after I leave this planet, I will never feel sorry for us again._

**Truth:**  of all the reasons that Shepard loved the Normandy, this was the simplest and most honest. They were two of a kind.

_The monument was set in the center of the debris field, in a spot that looked sheltered enough to keep the little statue from being overcome by snow too soon._

_After that, the search had gone more quickly. Twenty sets of dog tags filled her hand. Bakari, Draven, Pakti, Tucks, even Navigator Pressly; each name was called back over comms, reported in case something ridiculous happened and she didn't make it back with the tags. A section of the helm's nav-panel was tucked under her arm, Joker's souvenir, and she had just turned back to the shuttle when her boot kicked a rock that made a hollow thunk. She nudged it with her toe, and a thin layer of snow sifted free to expose an N7 helmet. Her N7 helmet._

_There was no telling how long she had stood there and stared at the thing, but it was long enough that whoever was listening on the comms had hit the squelch, checking that the channel was still live. That brief silence of the ever-present buzz in her ear brought her back, reminded her that there was a ship full of crew and a galaxy full of troubles waiting for her. With her free hand, she scooped up the helmet and took it aboard the shuttle with her. The broken O2 line dragged over her arm like a nerveless limb. A dead, powerless thing._

**Truth:**  she had climbed into the shuttle and flown herself back to the Normandy SR-2. Which was exactly the opposite of dying on that planet.

_The normally empty shuttle bay was bustling with a half-dozen crew when she disembarked. Doctor Chakwas had somehow coaxed Joker far from his customary roost at the helm; the two of them were walking the length of the cavernous room, going through the exercises that she always prescribed and he always avoided. Two crates had been pushed together to form a table; Tali perched on one end, fiddling with her omni-tool, while the rest of the space was taken up by a fully disassembled sniper rifle. Garrus meticulously cleaned each piece, standing in that casual-deadly hipshot way that said he was on his guard. He caught Shepard’s eye, a flickering in the small screen of his headset indicating a completed scan, probably of the remote readouts from Shepard’s suit. Checking her vitals. That was all the worry he would show for her, but it was enough; a tightness in her chest eased as she realized who had most likely been on the other end of the silent commlink the entire time she had been on the planet’s surface._

_She gave Garrus a slight nod. He returned it, then slid his glance to the only person in the room who had not served aboard the old Normandy SR-1._

_Miranda leaned against a bulkhead, somehow making the posture seem sinuous. Unlike the others, she made no pretense that she was there for any reason but to wait on Shepard's return. It was the closest thing to honesty that the woman was capable of._

_Shepard stood for a moment, expression studiously neutral. Her ground team knew the look; Tali powered down her omni-tool and slid off the crate, Garrus quietly emptied his hands and folded his arms. Shepard turned back to the shuttle and sat on the edge of the doorway, the better to gather up her finds from the crash site, pulling them within easy reach. In her peripheral sight, she saw Miranda push away from the bulkhead and cat-foot in her direction. Just because the Cerberus operative had been in charge of the project that had brought Shepard back to life didn't mean she knew the Commander well enough to know when to keep her distance._

_"Welcome back, Commander Shepard," Miranda's smooth voice was just accented enough to be interesting, as calculated as everything else about her. "I trust that the monument has been well placed?"_

_"It has."_

_"Excellent. I'm sure that must have been hard for you. I look forward to reading your report." There was a slight edge in her voice. Miranda had been one of those who had to be told twice that she would not be accompanying Shepard to the crash site. At the time, it had seemed odd for the ship's XO to hound the Commander so persistently, particularly for a mission that wasn't at all Cerberus-related. For most people, one ‘no’ from Shepard was enough. Of course, now she knew why._

_Shepard answered without looking up, carefully stacking the dog tags in the palm of her gloved hand. "Oh, I won't be writing up a report on this one."_

_There was an affronted pause. "May I ask why?"_

_"Because laying the Normandy SR-1 to rest is none of Cerberus's business." Her calm voice hardened with controlled anger, and she sensed her team's response. They began moving closer, shamelessly eavesdropping, "But when you file your own report, the secondary report that you always file, the one that's not about the mission but about me ..." Shepard finally looked up, locking eyes with Miranda, "... you can tell the Illusive Man that I got his message."_

_Miranda tried for confusion, but fell short. It just wasn't an expression that her tailored features were suited for. "Message? I'm not sure what you mean, Commander."_

_Armor creaked softly as Shepard leaned into the shadows of the shuttle's hold to retrieve an object. With an underhand toss, it flew in a gentle arc across the brief space. Reflex brought Miranda's arms up to catch it. She looked down, turning it over in her hands._

_"Is that ..?" Joker started to ask, but didn't need to finish the question. Of course he would recognize it. He had watched the O2 line snap from the window of his escape pod._

_"The helmet that killed me," she explained for everyone else's benefit, her stare never leaving Miranda. "The one that the Lazarus Project team peeled off of my dead skull in a lab on their space station."_

_"And somehow that helmet made its way to the crash site, where Shepard could just happen to find it?" Garrus drawled coolly, but she recognized the acidic disgust in his sub-chords. "How … convenient."_

_"Shepard, I want you to know that I had nothing to do with this," Miranda said. "If you had allowed me to travel to the surface with you, I could have collected this before it was found and we could have avoided this unpleasantness.”_

_“Why was it even down there?” asked Joker, an uncharacteristic frown pinching his brows._

_Shepard answered him without looking away from Miranda, “To remind me who I owe my life to. Who’s in charge.”_

_Miranda met her gaze and held it steadily. There had never been a lot of flinch in Operative Lawson. “I admit, there was a time when I advised the Illusive Man that his refusal to install a control chip would mean that your compliance would have to be manipulated in other ways - "_

_"Compliance? Shepard?" Tali could pack a lot of scorn into that sweet little modulated voice. "If you believe that, I've got some beachfront property on Rannoch to sell you."_

_"Yeah," snorted Joker. "Illusive Man? More like Delusional Man, am I right?"_

**Truth:**  her team always had her back. And somewhere along the line, they had all gotten sassy.

_Miranda ignored them in her aristocratic way, "- but when he presented me with this idea, I strongly advised against it. I've seen you in action, Shepard. After you helped me with Orianna, I just … You're a …" she tossed her head (prettily), gaze roving as though looking for the right words, "... a force of bloody nature. No leash in the galaxy could hold you, if you didn't allow it. Leaving this," she tossed the helmet back to Shepard, who caught it easily with one hand, "for you to find would be transparent, a too-obvious bid to reclaim control. In my estimation, it would have the opposite of the intended effect. Seems I was right.”_

_"Is that honestly what you told him?" Only Dr. Chakwas could manage to sound both disdainfully disbelieving and utterly polite. Classy._

_"Yes. It is." Miranda's words were clipped; she was starting to look cornered. Shepard swept the group with a glance, and her team eased back slightly. Miranda went on with an air of self-quoting, "Tug her leash too hard, and she will tug back. And when she does, the leash will snap."_

_Shepard gave a single nod, leaning back to recline slightly against the shuttle and curve a humorless smile at her XO, "Looks like you know what to file in your report, then."_

_Miranda knew a dismissal when she heard one. "Of course, Commander." Lips pressed together in displeasure, she turned and sauntered to the elevator, the natural rhythm of her stride drawing inevitable attention to the parts of her anatomy most revealed by the slim fit of her Cerberus uniform. In moments she was gone, leaving the former crew of the Normandy SR-1 alone in the shuttle bay._

_Joker was the first to break the silence. "Anybody else wonder how she gets into that outfit? I mean, is there oil involved, or does she just paint it on every day?"_

_"Outfit?" Tali folded her arms and popped out a hip. "And here I thought that was just the color of her skin, and she was wandering around in the nude." Joker guffawed, Dr. Chakwas chuckled, and Garrus just stared at the young quarian with his mandibles quirked for a long moment before huffing a chuckle._

_Shepard let their levity wash over her without being touched by it, though she sensed it was at least partly for her benefit. Alchera was just too raw, her anger with the Illusive Man simmering too high. She set her jaw against the effort to swallow her temper and speak kindly to her team. They were worth that effort._

_Propping the broken helmet on her knee, she reached into the shuttle and pulled out the jagged piece of nav-panel from the SR-1's helm. "Here. Souvenir," she handed it to Joker. "Can't say I never got you anything nice."_

_"Oh gee, Commander, you shouldn't have!" Sarcasm was the man's native tongue, "Just what I always wanted, a hunk of freezing cold … space … junk …" his words trailed off, the momentum of humor draining out of them as he took a closer look at what he held in his hands. He brushed fingertips across the surface, an echo of the deft patterns of flight, and his voice came softer, "Wow. I … thanks, Commander. Really." He ducked his head, the brim of his cap hiding his eyes from her._

_Elbows propped on knees, Shepard jostled the dog tags still clasped in her gloved hand. Their gentle metallic music seemed to call the attention of the small group._

_"We’ve got a few pick-up missions to handle, and then it’s off to get the Reaper IFF. After that it's a hop through the Omega-4 relay. No ports between here and whatever's there." A ripple of movement ran through them, feet shifting, heads nodding. "We've come a long way. Lost a lot of good people." The words seemed to pull from her mouth, like something she couldn't have stopped if she wanted to. Gravity. "But we've found these twenty again. So now it falls to the living to carry them the rest of the way home."_

_Counting out five tags for each of them, she passed the burden to her team until each of the four of them had a bundle of shiny metal in the palm of their hand. Her own hands were left empty. "Save the full list of names to your omni-tools. This way, even if not all of us make it back, the knowledge of the fallen will."_

_Setting the broken helmet aside, she shifted to rise and found Garrus’s hand offered to help. She would have waved anyone else aside, but not him. Reaching past his hand, she grasped his armored forearm and levered against his grip to rise to her feet._

_Joker was frowning at the tags in his hand; he looked up, lips parting to speak, but Garrus cut him off, "Been a long day. Probably we all need to get some rack time."_

_She slid him a half-frowned glance, "Is it night-cycle already?"_

_The worried purr of his sub-chords belied the nonchalance of his words, "Yeah, you were down there a while. Somehow we managed to get by." His grip on her forearm tightened briefly, “If you need to talk, Shepard …”_

_She looked up and found a deep well of understanding in his steel-blue eyes. Taking the comfort he offered would be easy, like falling into a warm bed. Clean and fresh and home. She couldn’t. Her anger was a hollow, greedy thing that would devour what he offered and every other part of him along with it. Like a house fire. Letting it burn him would be the worst kind of selfish. Wrong._

_Garrus’s mandibles parted slightly, his eyes searching her face. She realized that her grip was clenching his arm hard enough for him to feel it through the vambrace. She let go. Suddenly restless and desperate to get out of her armor, to shed the last lingering touch of that planet and its cold silence, to find a hole to hide in until she could be fit company again, Shepard just nodded and strode away to the elevator._

_Her team would forgive her brusque departure. They always did._

**Truth:**  the souls of her fallen comrades had been left safe in the hands of those who had survived. Even when the Collectors had abducted the crew, Dr. Chakwas had kept the tags she had been given safe, strung around her neck with her own. All twenty sets of tags had made it back to the Alliance. The living had brought the dead home, delivered along with Commander Shepard, who was a little bit of both.


	5. Exertion Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> {this one's a wee bit NSFW}
> 
> FNG: acronym "Fucking New Guy"; unofficial military term referring to someone just out of training or just transferred into the unit, who either hasn't proved their worth or doesn't know how to operate properly due to lack of experience

Sweaty again. Not the cold, sick sweat of fear and bad dreams but the hot, honest sweat of a body at work. She had lost count of push-ups at some point, though the burn in her triceps said it was time to stop. Ten more, then.

With one last push and a gasp, she flopped onto her back in the middle of her apartment floor. Hands rested on her ribs, feeling the steady rise and fall of exerted breath rapidly calming. She cast a sour glance at the surveillance camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. Where there was one she could see, there were a half-dozen more she could not. There were other ways to help dispel the nightmare, but she couldn't indulge while the cameras were watching. Hands on her ribs, pressing slightly to align fingers to the spaces between bones, was as intimate as she could be with herself in this place. The last thing she wanted was for the extranet to crawl with images of Commander Shepard's solo pleasure sessions.

Memory stirred. Fingers flexed, dug into her own flesh for a brief moment before lifting, sliding behind her head and away from temptation. As her body shifted into the autopilot of abdominal exercises, her mind was free to wander.

_Her armor was stifling, even in the short elevator ride to her cabin. It had kept her safe and warm on that frozen rock of a planet, shored her up during the confrontation with Miranda, but now she needed it gone. Fingers pulled at the gorget, stretching it as far from her neck as the heavy material would allow. Not enough. The breastplate needed to come off, but it was buckled to the pauldrons covering her shoulders. Cursing the thoroughness of Kassa Fabrications integration with N7 gear, she yanked at the straps, sending the heavy KF pauldrons clattering to the floor of the elevator. The door dinged open just as she was hurling her battered N7 breastplate at it, so the thing flew through the gap and bounced off the opposite wall with a reproachful clang. Growling, she kicked the pauldrons through the door after it before striding through herself._

_Finally able to breathe, ribs moving freely inside the heavy mesh underarmor, she closed her eyes. Turned to lean her back against the wall that had borne the the breastplate's impact and drew in a long breath that seemed to fill her all the way to her toes. Shipboard air, slightly stale from recycling; mother's milk to a spacer kid like her. It should have calmed her. It didn't._

_"Did the armor offend you in some way, Siha?" rumbled a mild voice._

_Shepard startled, spun to face him, a snarl involuntarily curling her lip. Thane stepped from the meager shadow near her cabin door. The SR-2 was so damn brightly lit in the hallways, there were very few places for assassins to lurk. Thane managed to find them, though, and apparently that was where he'd held vigil to wait for her return from Alchera. His poise usually soothed her by example, gave her something to strive for in her own behavior. On this night, it was vexing. He stood in the foyer outside her cabin door, hands folded quietly behind his back. As composed and coldly beautiful as Michelangelo's David done in shades of green while she roiled inside. A single brow ridge lifted inquiringly over black-on-black eyes, and she realized that she was staring._

_With an effort, she reined in her temper , shaking her head. "Had to take it off. Couldn't breathe."_

_He nodded, humming an understanding tone that sent a red shimmer along his throat-crest, "I would ask how your journey went, but I think that I can see ... Your armor bears no more signs of damage than it had when you departed some hours ago. I detect no ozone scent of expended thermal clips about you. And," with breathtaking speed, he closed the distance between them, hands bracing on the wall behind her, trapping without touching. His voice was a quiet growl from inches away, "my battle angel is spoiling for a fight."_

_Battle angel. That was what he had said his pet name for her, Siha, meant in the Drell tongue. A creature of blood and fire whose presence on a battlefield meant victory for one side and obliteration for the other. She didn’t know if it was true or not - Thane was prone to the kind of fancy talk that could make a piece of dry toast sound like poetry - but the name flustered and flattered her all the same. He was the only person she had met who could make her blush._

_She wasn’t blushing now. Her eyes narrowed, the threat and promise of his nearness quickening her pulse. "I don't spoil for fights, Thane. I have better control than that."_

_"You do," enigmatic tone could either contradict her first statement or agree with the second. "Though your control has been sorely taxed of late. The road has been long and much beset by battle. The stakes are high and the pace of engagement accelerated by a man of dubious motivations." Tension curdled her brow at this mention of the Illusive Man, and Thane's overfull lower lip curved in predatory amusement. "Ah. So I have him to thank for this magnificent temper."_

_Thane pulled one hand from the wall and ran it just above the curve of her cheek, semi-fused fingers drifting to caress the air a scant inch above her breast. Against all reason, she could feel the warmth of his hand through the mesh underarmor separating them._

_"It's not all him," her voice was rougher than she expected. "He just ambushed me, is all. That whole place did."_

_"Unsettling," he agreed calmly, hand drifting lower to press the air over her belly, which quivered under his not-touch. "To walk one's own grave and suffer attacks from enemies no bullet may wound. Hounded by ghosts of past and distance whose taunts cannot be answered in kind."_

_The truth of his words boiled in her gut, the frustration of the long, cold day setting her teeth on edge._

_There were those who would want to comfort her, try to understand. But she didn’t want comfort and understanding. Might need it, but didn’t want it. Every rapid thump of her heart and spark of her nerves reminded her that she owed the ability to feel those things to the Illusive Man, spun up her temper and kept that vicious little cycle going. A comforting hand would just force her to swallow it all, shove it down deep so she didn’t bite that hand, bottle it all up and save it for a rainy day. The kind of day that rained fire._

_Yes, fine, she was spoiling for a fight. All day, she had been shadowboxing with emotions she couldn't name and chafing at the manipulations of a man she was growing to despise. There was nothing to shoot at, nowhere to throw a punch, and the need to retaliate was burning her up from the inside. If she didn't vent it soon, she was going to explode. And the Commander couldn't afford to explode. Not ever._

_Her gaze met Thane's from inches away, searching those black depths for something she had no name for, something cold and solid to dash her fury against … and hissed in a breath when she found it. They had not been intimate for long; he could still surprise the hell out of her. Here was someone who could dance in the flames of her anger and not be burned because he didn’t love her enough for that. His heart was already already across the sea in his dead wife’s hands, safe and out of reach._

_Here was someone who could give her the fight that she craved. By the parting of pale green lips that curved in a rare hint of a smile, he knew exactly what she was thinking. And he was looking forward to it._

_She crushed that smile with a kiss made of tongue and teeth. He met her urgency with a muffled growl and a hard shove that pressed her back to the wall. The hand over her belly slid into the center seam of her underarmor, parting the fastenings with the deft ease of a man accustomed to finding the weak points in defenses. Fingertips traced scorching patterns across her skin as their mouths clashed, tongues stroking over one another, drinking long and deep. It was magic, but it wasn't what she needed. With a twist of the hip and a jab of a still-armored fist, Shepard put enough space between them to slip free._

_The fight was on._

_The master assassin flowed like poetry, measured and precise. The soldier struck like concentrated thunder, slower than her opponent but more powerful. A quick exchange of blows, more acrobatic and evasive than damaging, carried them through the door of her cabin and into the living space. Shepard had a brief, heady moment to imagine that she might be holding her own. Then Thane reminded her which of the two of them was an expert in close quarters single combat._

_It was like tumbling down a waterfall, the flurry of movement that finally bested her. Fluid and beautiful and unavoidable. In the end, she was held fast from behind, facing the empty fish tank. Lazily, Thane reached out to turn off the light in the tank so that she could clearly see their reflection in the darkened glass. The blue glow of biotic energy wrapped around her wrists, holding them tight above her head with a steady pressure. Thane was a shadow of temptation against her back, lean and so very solid, one forearm braced across her throat with his hand angled upward to hold the biotic energy steady. Her neck strained, jaw forcibly canted to one side. He could crush the breath from her in a heartbeat._

_He caught her gaze in the reflection. "So lovely …" he rumbled against her ear, spilling shivers down her spine. She couldn't stand the energy, kicking backward with a booted foot, trying to disable his stance. He grunted as she struck a solid blow, shifting his balance to evade her and never once losing his grip. A dark chuckle threaded his voice, "... so fierce, Siha."_

_A part of her marveled that he was holding her captive with just one arm. The rest of her was mesmerized, watching the reflection of his free hand caressing the air above her body again. He stopped there, catching her gaze in the darkened glass and lifting a brow. She understood. She had been the one to escalate a perfectly steamy make-out session to a fist fight; it was up to her how things progressed from here._

_The pendulum of her temper swung madly from sex to violence and back again. It was a rare mood, a wild and wicked thing that gnashed at her restraint. If she were on a battlefield, she would sight along the muzzle of a rifle, let the beast fly, drag her squad along in her bloody wake. But this was not a battlefield. This was her bedroom._

_“Thane …” her voice came quiet, thinned by a stretched neck. She gave a sway of hips that rubbed her still armored ass against him, “… touch me. Please.”_

_An purr of agreement rumbled against her spine. “Watch,” he instructed. She did, transfixed as the reflection of what he did to her magnified the sensations._

_He smiled, lips parting to slide his tongue lightly along her restrained jaw to dance along the shell of her ear. The imagined heat of his hovering hand became real as he slipped it into the center seam of the mesh, the touch lazy, savoring. Each rib was counted, the contours of muscle and hip explored, breasts plumped and pinched till her breath rasped in her confined throat. Fingers spread, the green of his skin vivid against the paleness of hers as the underarmor was shifted aside to bare more and more of her to the reflection._

_Finally, a stroke that started at her breastbone slid down her belly with a slow, inevitable purpose that set her bucking against him. His hold was too solid, his leverage too masterful; all she could do was watch in the glass as his hand pushed past the belt of her greaves and slipped into the slickness between her thighs._

There was a knock at the door. Shepard paused mid-crunch and sighed. Every damn time.

"C'mon in, Vega," she called.

She didn't look up as the big Marine strode through the door, gaze focused on her own knees as she put her core through another set of strengthening exercises. His stride was unmistakable, though. Long and light, stopping a fair distance away.

"How d'you know it was me this time?" James was getting better at skipping formalities. "I figured it was the knocking, before, so I got all the other guys to start doing it, too."

She knew it was him because of all the guards to knock on her door, he was the only one to ever interrupt her steamier daydreams. If she wasn't careful, this was going to turn downright Pavlovian. Instead of confessing to that and embarrassing them both, she lifted her left leg and waggled her boot at him.

"Ri-i-i-ight. Thought you needed to take the boot off for that."

"Upgrades," she grunted as she completed one last crunch, then collapsed to the floor and peered up at James. Caught him staring; he snapped to attention, eyes fixated on the middle distance and not on the unexpected sight of Commander Shepard prone and sweating on the floor. Not helping that Pavlovian thing, Marine.

Climbing smoothly to her feet, she gave him a once-over and frowned a little. Instead of his usual uniform, James was wearing fatigues and a plain white shirt that was a match for the one she wore. Except his shirt was four sizes bigger and still strained to contain the masses of muscle that made up his torso.

"At ease, Vega," her tone mocked her own lack of authority. He relaxed, and she stood hipshot, "You're all dressed up. Or down. What's the occasion?"

"Thought you might want to get some real PT. Ya know, outside. Where there's stuff like trees and sunshine and weather."

An environment that was more than plain walls and low ceilings? A place with open sky and the illusion of freedom? How exotic. How incredibly, desperately appealing. She tried to play it cool, "That'd be nice, if I was cleared for it. Has something changed?"

"Anderson cleared it. Something about extended confinement and continued cooperation. Lots of big words. I stopped listening." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the door. "So you wanna go run, or what?"

Hell yes. "Sure."

James led the way through the apartment's door, where she was stopped by an armed Marine in regular uniform. His was a face that she hadn't seen before. A little too old to be a new recruit, though still young enough to make her want to check behind his ears, a little too soft around the edges to have been in Lieutenant Vega's unit of hardbodies for long. A recent transfer, maybe.

The new guy held up a hand, "Ma'am. We'll need to scan you before we can clear you for outdoor activity."

Shepard shrugged; she would've signed over her space hamster's firstborn babies if it meant she got to go outside. James nodded to the Marine, his expression serious and foreboding, "Check her boots. We have reason to believe she keeps contraband in there, specifically the left one."

"Sir, I've calibrated my omni-tool to scan for all materials -"

"Eyeballs on, Corporal!" James growled down at the kid, a tip of his head casting intimidating shadows over his rough features. "Or do you think the Alliance can afford to take risks with a high-value package like Commander Shepard?"

"Aye, Lieutenant!" And so help her, she was made to strip off her boots right there in the hallway. The scan was completed with ludicrous thoroughness: under the laces, inside the socks, and even between her toes. And because she was technically sans rank, there was not a whole hell of a lot she could do other than put up with it.

Finally scanned and deemed safe for the outdoors, she threw a glance at Vega while hauling her boots back on. That careful Marine mask was firmly in place, likely for the Corporal's benefit. She waited until they had moved down the hall and were out of earshot before asking.

"Vega?"

"Ma'am?"

"Did you just use me to screw with the FNG?"

"Owes my buddy fifty creds, ma'am."

She snorted, "Sometimes, it's good to be home."

"Aye, ma’am."

Seconds later, sunlight hit her face and she knew she'd be lobster red before the end of the day. She briefly considered asking James if there was any sunscreen available, but then figured she would rather cuddle a rabid varren. There was no time, anyway; the big Lieutenant was leading her to a group of five Marines who were all dressed in PT fatigues. She kept her posture casual as she approached, though she couldn't help but give them all a quick once-over.

Young. Fit. Three men and two women. These were the kind of fighting-trim killers she expected to find serving with a beast like Lieutenant Vega. Each of them bore a holstered sidearm, though she could tell by the slightly disproportionate shoulder muscling that the two women were likely specialists with a sniper rifle. One of the men was nearly as beefy as Vega, but the other two were slim and leggy. Fast. It was a good squad to cover a prisoner who might attempt escape. She wondered if James had put it together. If so, his brains were showing.

They all snapped to attention as she approached, and every one of them - James included - saluted. She shook her head. "Pretty sure you're not supposed to do that, guys."

"Pretty sure we're not gonna stop, ma'am." James lowered his arm, and the rest of the squad followed suit, a few of them nodding agreement. He gestured casually to the group. "Hope you don't mind, but these ugly grunts will be joining us on our run today."

She nodded to the weapons, "Expecting trouble?"

Massive shoulders lifted in a shrug, "Think of us as an honor guard. We're honoring the historical fact that shit blows up when you're around."

The squad seemed to hold their collective breath, waiting to see her reaction. Shepard lifted one corner of her mouth in a half-smile, "Fair enough. We runnin' or what?"


	6. A Certain Context

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard takes a jog down memory lane.
> 
> Author's Note: Up to this point, I've been using italics to indicate a memory/flashback. But in this chapter I found myself with a memory-within-a-memory scenario and very limited formatting options. So! Anything in italics is memory, and anything
> 
> {both italicized and center-justified in fancy schmancy brackets}
> 
> is a memory of a memory. Because I complicate things. It's a curse.

Thump-thump-thump-thump. The metronome of boots in unison. As soothing as a mother's heartbeat. The squad let Shepard set the pace, and pride made her set a hard one. She never thought of herself as getting older, but if these Marines were young then she definitely wasn't that. Not anymore. Along paths, over gentle slopes, through trees and grassy places, the seven of them double-timed it through some kind of not-quite-public park. It was a common area, but only seemed to be used by Alliance personnel. A green island in the middle of a city that sprawled so seamlessly that it was hard to tell where the civilian space ended and the Alliance military complex began. The squad grew bored with the steady pace and started practicing formation drills with her as the centerpoint, switching positions on the move as Vega barked out signals.

They were literally running circles around her. Brats.

Shepard let them have their fun. If soldiers weren't giving you shit, they didn't think you were worth their time. This simple acceptance started knitting something back together inside her that she had given up for permanently torn. The reconstruction of Shepard was far more complicated than simply bringing her body back to life. For a human-centric organization, Cerberus had been stunningly neglectful of the humanity aspect of her resurrection.

Thump-thump-thump-thump. Fourteen boots pounding pavement didn't sound much like two boots echoing on bulkheads, but the memories rose up all the same. She let herself sink into the rhythm of the run and the vivid echo behind her eyes.

 

_… Thump-thump-thump-thump. Steady tread of booted feet echoing through the Normandy's passageways. Set of her jaw and flatness of her gaze more than enough to keep the Cerberus crew from eyeballing her as she jogged past. She was self-conscious and unfriendly about it._

_The problem with being reincarnated in a corporate laboratory was that your wardrobe was limited to whatever that corporation issued to you. A quick search of her gear had found only one garment specified for shipboard PT: a slim-fitting one piece suit made of some ultralight synthetic material. It covered her completely from neck to knees, and hid absolutely nothing. Faced with the options of wearing that, a full Cerberus uniform, or the only set of civvies in her quarters, the choice was disgruntlingly clear. She looked about as naked as she felt; the material was so light and breathable that it might as well have been nonexistent._

_Apparently the skintight design of Miranda's uniform was actually Cerberus standard. Oh well. At least it was black._

_She ran the well-lit corridors, marveling at the extravagance of having such a power surplus (and such a discipline deficit) that there were no ship regs for turning off lights in unused areas. A few laps around the cargo hold, and she would have a word or two with the ship’s engineers about that. Right after she introduced herself. Dr. Chakwas had hinted that there were other former-Alliance crew members on board, and Shepard hoped to find them in the engine room…_

 

It had become part of her routine, the shipboard running. Damn near a habit. When Garrus had first arrived on the ship, she had periodically checked on him. Her wounded friend. Jokes and calibrations updates covered what a moment’s honesty would reveal was just a need for reassurance that he was still there. Once he had healed and become a full-time member of her ground team, she just never stopped checking in. Just-checking-in evolved into a consistent after mission ritual. They would get back from a mission and head to their respective quarters. Garrus did whatever he did when she wasn’t looking (tinkering with the shiny new Thanix installs, probably) and she went for a run around the ship that would always end at the forward battery.

Just to talk. Review the mission, swap bull over old war stories, whatever. Mordin, the ever observant, had dubbed these meetings the “mission post-mortem, conducted by Doctors Shepard and Vakarian”. Sometimes, other squad members would join them. Tali was a regular, with her playful wit and genius. Dr. Chakwas would saunter over from the med bay if she suspected they might be dodging her for wound care. Even Joker joined them if the Normandy was docked. Thane never did, though, politely citing a need for dry air and meditation. Nobody ever managed to stay for the duration of the bull session; it ran too late for most folks, since turians needed less sleep than any other species but salarians, and part of Shepard’s fancy new cybernetics package was a circadian modulator that trimmed her rest cycles down to four hours a night. In the end, it had always been Shepard and Vakarian shutting the crew deck down for the night.

 

_… Skeleton crew of the night cycle kept out of her way, marking her passage with tired smiles and the occasional murmured "Commander". Her crew. She had barreled into hell to snatch them all back from the Collectors, and left nothing but scorched rubble behind her. A lesson to all those who would try to steal her people. For now, until she had to hand them all back to Cerberus, this crew was hers. They seemed content with that._

_Shepard should have been sleeping. The victory party had been long and raucous, and wound down hours prior. There was a bed full of warm, sleeping assassin in her cabin that should have beckoned her. But even after hours of celebrating with her squad, and then a marvelous private celebration with Thane (followed by a quick shower; the only one of Mordin's medical predictions about sex with a Drell to come true was the mild rash issue, easily solved by prompt bathing) Shepard had found herself wide awake. Restless. Full to brimming with a nervous hum that seemed to radiate from her bones out. She had tried to distract herself with reports and rosters, tallying the dead and compiling the evidence of a pending Reaper incursion, but sitting still was simply out of the question. After the third time that her pacing back and forth had caused Thane to stir in his sleep, she decided it was time to leave the cabin._

_And so she jogged the halls of the Normandy, bow to stern, every floor. EDI helpfully suggested more efficient routes for her to take, even going so far as to provide red blinking guidance lights on the floorboards. Shepard thanked the AI, but completely ignored the lights. Skipping the elevator, she found service hatches and passages between decks that she'd never known existed. Every square meter of hull that passed her gaze, each newly discovered nook and hold, chipped away at the hard knot of tension that had been sitting in the center of her chest since she had first returned to find the Normandy empty of everyone but Joker. The Normandy had been violated by the Collectors, and it had felt like a violation of her own self. Shepard found herself reaching out from time to time as she ran, brushing fingers across a bulkhead as she turned a tight corner, jumping up mid-stride to smack a palm against an overhead beam. Bonding with her ship. Reclaiming her._

_Sweating and tired in body if not in mind, she ended her run in the mess hall at the center of the crew deck. The chairs were empty, the big windows of the med bay were dark, and all was quiet but for the ever-present hum of FTL drives. Shepard helped herself to a bottle of water from the mess and set about pacing the length of the hallway to the forward battery, cooling down._

_Reaching the end of the hall, she pondered the door. The place where her feet had taken her after every mission in this insane campaign._

_This mission had been different, though. The last mission. In all the chaos of the escape from the exploding Collector base and the ensuing celebration, Shepard and Garrus had both missed the chance for their post-mortem. The next stop was the Terminus systems, and dropping off any crew who didn't want to return to the Alliance. There were no more missions. Standing at the door now, she felt a pang of something in her chest. She tapped the door, not actually expecting Garrus to be awake. Not at this hour._

_The doors slid open and there he was, bottle in hand and surprise all over his face._

_They stared at each other for a long moment. The forward battery was darkened, weapons powered down for the first time in ages, which left Garrus awash in the glow from the hallway behind her, half-sitting on the central console. He was still wearing parts of his armor, greaves and boots, but his chestpiece and gauntlets were strewn on the floor. Something about the scene seemed familiar, but before she could puzzle that out she was distracted by the man himself._

_In all the time that she had known Garrus, she had never seen him out of armor. It was turian tradition to remain battle-ready at all times during war, and they had never known each other in peacetime. Upper body covered in a snug underarmor material, he was both more and less physically imposing. Less, because he seemed smaller without that broad shell of a chestpiece. More, because now she could see that he was made entirely of solid bone and muscle. Not an ounce of spare flesh. The forward jut of his breastbone swept gracefully up to the cowl plating that protectively encircled his neck. Shoulders shifted and bunched powerfully, slabs of muscle moved under rigid plates across his angled chest and tapered down to a narrow, corded waist. She felt her eyebrows climb; Garrus was … well, he was quite the specimen._

_And he was getting an eyeful of her, too, steel blue eyes wide and staring, ever-present visor gone for once. Belatedly, she realized how she must look, silhouetted by the hallway light in that ridiculous skintight Cerberus outfit._

_"Lights," she muttered, and the battery's service lights flicked on. She blinked in the new brightness, but Garrus just kept staring. Turian eyes were naturally attuned to brighter illumination, and adjusted to changes in light exponentially faster than human eyes. No blinking for him. No closing his mouth, either._

_"Mandibles in, Vakarian," she drawled, propping one hand on a hip and swigging from her water bottle with the other. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”_

_Now he blinked, snapped his mandibles shut. "Shepard! I just thought …" there was a tone to his subchords that she had never heard before, which was odd. She was sure she'd heard it all from him by now. He hefted a bottle, and she could tell by the glassy slosh that he'd already drunk half of it, "... it doesn't matter what I thought. Want?" He held the bottle out to her. "It's crap, but it's booze. Best I could get on a vigilante's salary. Safe for dextro and levo alike."_

_His words echoed oddly in her ears, like she was hearing him say them twice. She covered her confusion by taking the bottle and tipping it back, chugging a mouthful of the worst wine she'd ever tasted. She could feel Garrus's eyes on her, probably waiting to see her choke on the stuff._

_It was a near thing, but she didn't choke. Coughing was not the same thing as choking. Garrus chuckled and took his bottle back. "Shouldn't you be sleeping like all the other good little humans?"_

_She shook her head, both to clear the lingering word-echoes and answer him. Tapped a finger against her temple. "Tick-tock. Couldn't sleep if I wanted to, anyway. Didn't seem right to lay my head down without putting the Normandy to bed, first." She winced, stepping over to sit on the crate that was her usual perch, sprawling tired legs with a sigh, "If that even makes sense."_

_Chin ducking downward, flaring the fringe of his headplates over his collar, Garrus made an agreeable rumble, "Sure it does. You're the commanding officer of this ship, and while you were away somebody hurt her. Broke into her and stole her crew. Got to reassure her - and yourself - that it won't happen again." His head turned slightly, sliding a glance in her direction as his voice dropped to a foreboding thrum, "... Even though it probably will."_

_She leaned back on her hands and quirked a brow at him, "That's what I like about you, Garrus. Always such a ray of sunshine."_

_He gave a dry chuckle, "I'm not the one you come to for sunshine, Shepard." Again, that strange note in the flanging of his voice. "I'm more of a truth and wisecracks guy. And the truth is: the price of being as good as you are is that enemies who can't hurt you directly will hurt any part of you that they can reach. And the Normandy is a part of you."_

_Hearing her private ruminations spoken aloud in that resonant voice made her heart thump. She had never told anyone about the kinship she had found with her ship while wandering Alchera, and it was … something … to think that he somehow knew. Her tone was guarded when she asked, "What do you mean?"_

_Twitch of a mandible said Garrus caught the tone, heft of a sigh said he was choosing his next words carefully. Arms folded under his breastbone, tensing some muscles and relaxing others, stretching the underarmor fabric across the bony ridge of his spine. "Shepard …"_

_{"Shepard …" an echo of the word a half-second behind. A different voice. Still Garrus, but so tired.}_

_"... Why do you think I keep the weapons so fine-tuned?"_

_The echo of his voice came from farther away, this time, like two Garruses were speaking. Shepard blinked hard and covered her disorientation with smartassery, "Because you like really big guns?"_

_"Yes. Because I like really big guns," he snarked back, eyes narrowed. "But also because I'm … well, I'm not a very good turian." She looked a question at him. He pushed away from the console to prowl the small space, "A good turian would build a small altar in his quarters, honoring the spirit of his military unit. But I haven't built one since I left my father's house. Praying to the spirit of C-Sec always seemed vaguely sacrilegious, and then on Omega I was just working too hard at keeping us all alive to take the time. Maybe if I had …" he shook his head, derailing that train of thought. "Anyway. When I came here, I didn't need to build an altar to the spirit of this unit. Because I was looking at it every day."_

_His gaze met hers from across the small room, and there was an unfamiliar weight to it. She shifted, leaning forward to brace elbows on knees, leaning into that weight. "Garrus," her voice was quiet, careful, "I'm not a spirit."_

_"No. You're not. You're flesh and bone and a whole mess of cybernetics," a mandible twitched, "in a very practical outfit." She lifted a lazy middle finger. He snorted, humor fading as quickly as it had come, "But everything fell apart when the Normandy went down. When you died ..."_

_{"...you were dead." the other-Garrus gasped, voice flanging with fatigue and shock.}_

_"... And it didn't start coming back together until Cerberus brought you back to life. Both of you."_

_One long-fingered hand reached out to rest against the bulkhead, and Shepard knew he was talking about herself and the Normandy. Her head was starting to reel, from the bizarre echoing Garrus voices, from shock of realizing that his insight saw into the connection that had been her own private musing, from the draught of bad wine in her belly. She ducked her head, gaze resting on her hands while she tried to focus._

_"I know you don't like all the hero-worship crap." His subchords were amused in a tired sort of way, "But Shepard, this is me talking. I don't worship your legend, I just know you. The soldier, the stubborn ass, the terrible dancer, the friend." That last word was spoken softly, and drew her gaze back up to meet his. Something warm stirred in her chest, rose into her throat at the sight of the quiet honesty in those normally cynical blue eyes. His voice went on, still soft and harmonic, "When Cerberus rebuilt you and the Normandy, they tied you together with invisible, unbreakable threads. If this unit has a spirit, it looks like the Normandy … but its name is Commander Shepard."_

_What could she possibly say to that? She could barely swallow past whatever emotion was crowding her throat, let alone speak. Garrus broke eye contact first, turning to step to the console and lean down, bracing his hands against it. He spoke without looking at her. "Turians honor our military spirits by taking care of them. Praying to them. I can't pray to you; it's too weird. And I can't take care of you," again, those strange subchord tones that she'd heard when she first walked in. He cleared his throat to dispel them, went on with a growl, "But I can take care of the Normandy. Calibrate the hell out of her cannons, make her teeth as sharp as I can get them. This forward battery is my altar."_

_There was an ache in his voice that pulled at her. Her tall turian friend, proud spine bent over the console, over the altar that he would be losing all over again once they returned to Council space. Impulse drove her to her feet, pushed her to close the distance between them and lay her hand on top of his. Her five fingers naturally shifted to align with his three, and for a moment they both just looked at their hands resting together on the console._

_"You do take care of me, Garrus," she said quietly, simply. "There's no way I could've survived this long without you." He shook his head slightly, not looking at her. She jostled his arm for emphasis, not willing to let him deny it, pressing down on his hand till she could feel the slender, steel-like tendons under her fingers, through his glove. "I am so grateful, so proud, to know that once I get home you'll be out there somewhere. Watching my six."_

_A huff of breath that was almost a chuckle trailed into a rumbling hum. "Dunno if my scope can sight across half the galaxy. I mean, I'm good, but I'm not break-the-laws-of-physics good." He lifted his head, met her gaze from closer than they had ever physically been without huddling together in cover while bullets flew by. Something about the look in his eyes made her feel like there were bullets pinging in the quiet room. Bullets that she couldn't see. "Shepard, I …"_

_{"Shepard … I thought you were dead." the fatigue in his voice matched the slow weight of his movement, as though his bones ached. The shock in his subchords matched the surprise that dropped her jaw, threw her arms wide._

_"Garrus! What are you doing here?" She could have hugged the big turian, she was so damn glad to see him. Finally, someone she knew could be trusted completely. Someone who wasn't on the Cerberus payroll. But the presence of Jacob and Miranda at her back kept her in check. As intended._

_"Just keeping my skills sharp," there was a breathless quality to his voice, banter covering the way his eyes swept hungrily over every inch of her face, then flickered to the Cerberus operatives behind her as he shifted the rifle across his knees. "A little target practice."_

_A tiny shake of her head answered his implied question, turned down his silent offer to remove her Cerberus escort with a pair of neatly placed bullets. Words continued, to cover the real conversation, "You okay?"_

_One shoulder hitched up: message received, no killing the nice operatives. "Been better," he would stay vigilant, though, watch her back. "But it sure is good to see a friendly face."_

_His face. Tatters of flesh and glistening bone, blue blood gushing, splattering the floor, bubbling in his throat. Pain rolled his eyes, wide and wild and unfocused until she forced him to look at her. With her voice, she shouted for Miranda to call for evac. With her eyes, she ordered him to stay with her. Begged him. It was too soon to lose him, too cruel to take away the only soul in the galaxy she could trust. He tried to speak, jaw too shattered for words, but only subchords came out. Strange and sad, pained._

_Spotlight in her peripheral vision, and she tore her eyes away from Garrus with a snarl. If it was another gunship, there would be fiery hell to pay. But no, it was the evac shuttle. Medics were rushing in their direction, rushing out of the light._

_Jacob's voice, "Commander, they're here. You need to let him go so they can treat him. Commander!"}_

_"Commander?" A gentle voice, softly accented. Bright light shining in her eyes. "Shepard, can you hear me?"_

_"Why isn't she responding?" Garrus, demanding words laced with the jarring subchords of anxiety._

_Gentle voice again, calmly, "Garrus, for the last time: muzzle it, or I will personally kick your arse out of my med bay." Dr. Chakwas, then._

_"Concern for Shepard commendable." A rapidfire, nasal voice. Not unkind. Mordin. "But interruptions unhelpful. Best to let us work."_

_Work? Cool weight at her temples, chest, the bend of her arm. Sensors adhered to her skin, beeping softly. She blinked against the light in her eyes, earning an approving sound from Dr. Chakwas. "Looks like we're coming back 'round. Commander Shepard, can you hear me?"_

_The light moved, and she was able to focus. On the ceiling. She was lying on her back while people moved around her. Instinct snapped her upright, swung her legs over the side of the exam table, spike of panic clearing the last of the vagueness from her thoughts: it was too much like waking up in the Project Lazarus lab. The sensors on her chest shrilled a brief alarm, then fell silent as she found familiar faces around her and her heart rate calmed. Mordin and Dr. Chakwas nearby. Garrus behind them, whole and alive, not bleeding out under her hands._

_"What the hell happened?" she growled. For some reason, that made everyone in the room smile slightly._

_"If you're feeling well enough to grumble, then I'd say you're well on your way to right again." Dr. Chakwas said, poking at her omni-tool and making the sensors beep._

_Mordin answered her, in his prompt way, "Brief drop in blood pressure resulted in loss of consciousness. Likely due to combination of stress and exertion." He sniffed, "And cheap alcohol."_

_"You fainted," Garrus drawled, folding his arms and leaning back against the other exam table._

_She scowled at him. "I did not."_

_He lifted a single browplate, mimicking an expression he had seen all too often on her face. "Did so. Collapsed right there in the battery. I had to carry you in here, like some kind of swooning damsel in distress." The fact that he was teasing her about it said just how relieved he was, and maybe how badly she had scared him._

_"What Officer Vakarian claims is factually accurate, if somewhat hyperbolic," EDI's smooth voice spoke from the AI interface that popped up at Garrus's elbow. "When I detected the unsafe drop in your vital signs, I contacted Doctor Chakwas and Professor Solus and directed them to this med bay. Officer Vakarian carried you here from the forward battery."_

_She turned her scowl on the faceless orb of the AI. "You were monitoring my vitals?"_

_"I monitor the vital signs of every person aboard the Normandy at all times, Commander."_

_Oh. "Fine, okay, I fainted. No big deal. Anybody would've, after the day I've had."_

_Dr. Chakwas snorted, "You're hardly 'anybody', Shepard."_

_"That is accurate," EDI confirmed. Chatty little AI. "Your vitals frequently reflect stress levels that would incapacitate an average human. I have had to create a new standard scale by which to judge your condition in order to prevent you from skewing my comprehensive data for the crew."_

_"Nice going, Shepard," Garrus scolded, teeth flashing in a grin. "You broke the data."_

_Grumbling, she picked at the sensors on her arms, "Let's just get these things off of me so everyone can go back to bed."_

_"A moment, Commander," Mordin stepped in front of her, wide eyes dancing between the sensors at her temples, one tapered finger tapping his chin thoughtfully. "While physical signs were consistent with loss of consciousness, neurological signs were not. Very active. More like patterns of rapid-eye-movement dream activity than expected dormancy."_

_"Your eyes were wide open the whole time, Shepard," Garrus spoke with his slow cadence of thoughts in motion, "And moving. Like you were watching something only you could see."_

_Her mouth went dry. What they were describing sounded an awful lot like Thane’s episodes, narrating his own memories aloud. Her voice was thinner than she would have liked when she asked Garrus, "Did I … did I say anything? While I was … out?"_

_"No." His gaze sharpened at the wariness in her tone. "Why?"_

_Mordin folded his arms, shaking his broken-crested head in reproach. "Did warn of potential hallucinatory effects of oral contact, Shepard."_

_Damn all quick-witted Salarians. For no reason that she could name, she desperately wanted to not be talking about the effects of having had a Drell in her mouth. Not with Garrus in the room. Sure, everybody on the Normandy knew that she and Thane were lovers, but they didn't know know. Details were vague. Maybe she could keep them that way."Yeah, but I've had ... oral contact ... multiple times, with no ill effect. This is the first time I've been hit with something like this."_

_Garrus looked back and forth between the two of them. "Oral contact with what?"_

_Bless him, Mordin ignored the question. "What was nature of hallucination? Visual? Auditory? Ah! Perhaps gustatory!"_

_"It was a … memory," she glanced at Garrus, who was scowling, trying to puzzle out what was going on. His face was scarred, but whole. Not shattered. "A full-sensory flashback, crystal clear. A little too real." Her hands were not covered in hot blue blood. She had to look down to be sure._

_Mordin made an intrigued, excited sound, his words a tumbling staccato, "Hmm! Will need sample. Run tests. Theorize interaction with cybernetics, possible re-route of hallucinogenic compounds to memory centers of brain. Effects could be long-term! Improved clarity of recall hardly undesirable. Loss of consciousness problematic. Hmm. Would advise against further oral contact until testing completed."_

_"Hallucinogenic?" Garrus asked, dubious, "That wine was cheap, not psychadelic. I can get the bottle if you need a sample, though."_

_"No, no," Mordin wave a dismissive hand. "Not wine. Need various fluid samples. From Thane."_

_So much for vague. The sudden heat in her cheeks was not a blush. Commander Shepard did not blush, especially when she had absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. Garrus let out a dry chuckle, tipping his chin down and scratching at the underside of his fringe; the turian version of blushing, which he also certainly was not doing._

_"A-a-a-a-and that's my cue to leave," his words were just a bit too bright, his subchords jangling. "I'll just go roust Thane out of Life Support and send him over, then go find something that needs calibrating."_

_In for a penny …"He's not in Life Support," Shepard admitted._

_Garrus lifted that browplate again, "Then where ..?"_

_EDI piped up, ever helpful, "At present, Thane Krios is asleep in Commander Shepard's cabin."_

_Garrus looked at the ceiling, his mandibles pulled in tight in the expression she had come to recognize as his poker face. Whatever he was thinking, he was trying not to show it. Shepard wanted to crawl in a hole or shoot something. Or both. It hadn't been that long ago that Garrus had been regaling her with tales of reach and flexibility on board a turian vessel, and that had been funny. Why was this so weird?_

_Merciless as any computer, EDI went on, "I can wake Thane and inform him that his presence is requested in the med bay, if it will help to avoid any undue awkwardness."_

_"I do believe that ship has flown, EDI," Dr. Chakwas stepped in crisply, saving them all. "But thank you for your consideration. Please do invite Thane to join us."_

_Garrus was slipping out the door when Shepard's voice stopped him, "Vakarian! Good work, today. And thanks. For … everything." It was lame, too little and, if the odd ache in her chest was any indication, maybe too late._

_He half-turned, looking back at her over the curve of his cowl. Simple words were made complicated by those strange subchords again, more familiar this time. "Any time, Shepard."_

 

Thump-thump-thump-thump. The run went on, had gone one for who knew how long, and the steady machine of her body was starting to feel the strain. Damned if she would be the first to call for a rest, though.

James and the other beefcake Marine had moved to the back of the group, their stamina not quite up to the unflagging ridiculousness of their slimmer squadmates. Shepard would smirk if she wasn't suffering, herself. She wondered what EDI would think of her superhuman vitals now.

And just like that, with a pang like a cramp in her soul, she missed her ship.

"Hey, LT," she called over her shoulder.

"Ma'am?" James did an admirable job of not sounding winded.

"Any chance we can swing by the airfield?" She tried for nonchalant, but it was hard to sound casual when she was huffing.

"No can do, Commander. You're cleared for outdoor PT in the Commons only. Vice-Admiral Williams barely allowed that." He paused for breath. She caught the eye of the tall male Marine next to her; they shared a smirk at Vega's expense. "Dunno what you did to piss him off."

Got his family killed. A Williams in a command position who had a hate for the name of Shepard was probably related to Ash. Not everyone understood about what had happened on Virmire. Tough calls were tough for a reason. But these kids didn't need to hear about that. "Let me know if that changes, Vega. I promise I won't commandeer her. Just want to say hi."

"Yes ma'am."

After a moment, the other giant Marine keeping pace with James behind her tried to ask a question in a quiet voice, but a man that size simply can't get his voice to drop below a certain volume. She could hear him clearly. "LT, who's she talkin' about?"

"Her ship, pendejo. The Normandy." There was a reverence in his rough voice when he said the name of her ship that made her like him better, and sent a spear of longing through her gut.

Her mind filled with useless worry. About her ship, being busily retrofitted by utterly competent Alliance techs. About her crew, scattered across the stars and perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. She wished more than anything to be back aboard, standing behind the helmsman, feeling the subtle vertigo of a mass relay's pull. The Normandy (and everything she represented) was so close, docked at the nearby airfield, but might as well be lightyears away for all that she could reach it. With the rush of frustrated longing came a loss of focus, and she could hear her breath start to wheeze in her throat like the labored rattle of a dying animal.

Or a wounded turian.

Context was everything. Craving something she needed, but couldn't touch. Something that made her feel whole and alive and in command of her own existence, but she couldn't have it because she had let it go, entrusted it to the care of another. Wishing. Longing. And knowing she could only wait and hope. Unable to speak of it, but sound came out of her anyway. A sound like strange subchords from a familiar turian.

She had heard them for the first time when he had taken that rocket to the face, looked up at her and tried to talk through a mangled jaw. Those pained tones. She had not heard them again until that last night, strange out of the context of bloodshed and loss, now obvious in the clarity of recall. Once, when he had first seen her in the battery doorway, a practically nude shadow ...

_... "Shepard! I just thought ... it doesn't matter what I thought."_

And again, when he referred to their friendship ...

_... "I'm not the one you come to for sunshine, Shepard."_

_... And I can't take care of you. … But I can take care of the Normandy."_

… or what their friendship was not. Garrus wished for her. Longed for her. Had from the moment she had come back into his life.

The realization hit her like a punch in the face. Shocked her out of cadence entirely. She stumbled, upper body pitching forward while her legs tried to remember which one was supposed to move next.

It was the only thing that saved her from the sniper.

 


	7. Shots Fired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Behold my attempts at including the Adrenaline Rush power that Soldiers get in ME3 as part of the narrative. Ditto for advancements in weapon technology.

Time slowed down for Shepard when there were bullets in the air. Always had. As soon as her instincts pinged danger and her senses started pouring in data, she would slip into a sort slow-motion haze. Like sinking into a bathtub full of warm honey, calm and sweet and lazy, where the world slowed down and let her parse out every little thing that was happening. It was a unique talent that had popped up during live fire drills in basic training, and Cerberus's tinkering with her adrenal glands had only enhanced the effect.

So when she stumbled over a memory and a bullet split the air inches behind her head, she had the space between one heartbeat and the next to react. All the time in the world.

The familiar honey-haze rose, and she welcomed it like a long lost friend. Her left ear caught the meaty impact of a high velocity bullet into flesh; the tall Marine at her side had taken the hit. Her right ear caught the distant crack of a rifle, almost like the tinny cough of an M-98 Widow but not quite. Her mind measured the delay between impact and rifle report, numbers pouring through sniper equations that bore the rumbling signature of Thane's voice, calculating angles and distances and trajectories. When you fancy yourself a good marksman until you meet someone who could shoot the fleas off a varren’s ass at four hundred meters, you don’t waste time on jealousy; you make him teach you.

The Marines of her escort squad were just beginning to react, muscles tensing and heads starting to turn to the right, tracking the sound of the shot. Her eyes sought cover positions and found two: an unoccupied bench about five meters ahead on the right, or a clump of flowering trees immediately to her left alongside the path. Cover with partial visibility on the incoming vector, or complete cover and blindness. Not that being able to spot the shooter would do any good. A twitch in her hands reminded her just how empty and not full of gun they were.

Frustration ground her teeth just as her right ear surprised her with the sub-audible whistle of more bullets incoming. Two more rifle cracks. In sequence, not overlapping. One shooter? Too soon after the first shot. Three shooters? Caution, then.

Decision analyzed and made in between heartbeats, Shepard launched into motion. Right boot planted on the path, tendons in the knee complaining as she forced the forward momentum of her stumble to become a full-body tackle into the wounded Marine at her side. He was tall and already reeling from the shot, she was short and motivated: taking him down was easy. Her shoulder slammed into his gut and bent him in half as she bore him to the ground. Above them, she could hear the angry buzz of projectiles finding air instead of flesh.

Abruptly, the honey-haze receded, and she let it go with a pang. She hit the ground at normal speed with a length of bloodied man under her. The world caught up as she grimly calculated the time it took to reload a sniper rifle versus the time it would take her to drag a grown man across the brief distance to the trees. It was going to be awfully close.

She was just rising to a crouch when a shadow fell over her. There was barely time to recognize Vega's growl of "Sorry, Commander" before she found herself flung over his massive shoulder like a sack of pissed-off potatoes and bounced mercilessly as he bolted for the cover of the trees. Shepard knew better than to bury her elbow in the back of a man's skull when he was just trying to get her to safety, but that didn't keep her from wanting to do it.

Vega dropped her boots-first behind the trees, then planted a shovel-sized hand on her shoulder and pushed her down into a crouch. Pistol in hand and broad back braced against a tree trunk, he stood over her. Shepard knew this posture: classic protect-the-noncombatant stuff. It was all suddenly funny; honestly, when was the last time that she had been considered a noncombatant? Probably right around the same time that she had last brought fists to a gunfight. Damn, she hated being unarmed.

The thing about opening fire on an Alliance facility is: nobody panics. There was none of the screaming and chaos that might come from a civilian scene. All across the idyllic city park they had been jogging through, she could see folks dropping footballs and abandoning picnics, diving into cover. Nobody pulled sidearms, though. Seemed Vega's squad had the only guns in the vicinity, which made him the ranking armed officer on site. 

One heartbeat of silence. Two. It was long past the time that she would have started barking orders, but this was not her squad. She didn't even have a comm link. James was in charge of this detail, but he hadn't said a word since manhandling her. Something had frozen the big Lieutenant.

"James," she tapped his knee, "get your wounded over here. I'll check him while you call for medics." No response. She frowned, her voice filling with the sharp punch of command, "Lieutenant Vega!"

That seemed to get through. A tremor ran through James, sending visible goosebumps down his arms and freeing him from whatever had held him silent. He tapped into comms, his words calm and authoritative, "Finch, get Montgomery to my position. Lee and Buckley, cover him." Tapped again, "Vega to Command, shots fired on the Commons. Likely sniper. Package is secure. One wounded so far. I need a medic out here, ASAP. Recommend sweeps at standard intervals up to twelve-hundred meters north-northwest of my nav-point to locate the shooter."

Shepard grunted, half annoyed and half impressed. Annoyed, because the "package" was almost certainly her. Impressed, because the distance that he called out was close to the result of her own mental calculations. If he was operating on par with the equations taught to her by a master assassin, then Vega was good. He would be excellent someday if he could get over whatever had made him freeze up.

The other beefcake Marine who had been running behind her (the improbably-named Finch) hauled the wounded man across the grass and dropped him at Shepard's feet. He took up a position mirroring James, and Shepard found herself suddenly under the vigilant protection of a quarter-ton of muscled manflesh. She felt ridiculous.

At least there was a good distraction. She tuned out Vega's comm-chatter with his other squad members and got to work on the one that was bleeding. Hands deft and firm, she took quick stock of his wounds. The bullet had pierced his biceps completely, then kept on travelling to bore cleanly through his ribs and punch a hole the size of her fist out through his back. Shepard growled under her breath. That hole had been intended for her skull.

"James, got any medi-gel on you?" She was no doctor, but she was pretty sure there shouldn't be bubbles in the blood coming out of his back.

"Nope,” he answered, never taking his eyes off of their surroundings. “Finch?”

“Just a first-aid pack,” Finch sounded apologetic through his focused wariness. "Left thigh pocket."

Shepard leaned over the wounded man to reach the pocket, blood-slicked fingers leaving livid streaks on the dull grey fabric of his fatigues as she dug around for the medi-gel. Little first-aid packs like this one weren't intended for massive repairs, but it might hold him over till med-evac could find them. Popping the seal on the cannister, she applied it directly to the bubbling back wound and held her breath. If the hole didn't close up, odds were good that his lung would fill with blood before the medics arrived. Shepard made a face as the flesh at the center of the wound started oozing together like wet red clay being molded by invisible hands. As many times as she had used the stuff herself, it was always a little unsettling to watch medi-gel in action. At least the bubbling stopped.

Not so for the bleeding, however. "Vega, Finch, give me your shirts."

Vega blinked. "Ma'am?"

"Medi-gel took care of the worst of it, but he's still bleeding from four places. I need bandages. Either give me your shirts, or I'll have to use my own."

The threat of Commander Shepard going topless was motivating; Vega and his blond doppelganger took turns stripping out of their shirts and staying on armed lookout. In short order, she had a makeshift bandage on the arm wound and both hands pressing pads into the wounds on the torso. Blood was soaking the white fabric, but at least it was doing it slowly.

Shepard took stock of her situation. No gun, no armor. Shot at, but not shot. Arms half wrapped around one Marine while two more stood protectively over her like the galaxy's most muscular, barechested mother hens. Garrus was going to laugh his ass off when he heard about this.

Garrus. She shook her head, felt a hum rise in her throat that echoed the discordant tones of his voice on that last night. Longing. What wouldn't she give to have him at her back right at that moment? Returning sniper fire, anticipating her thoughts so well that she never had to order him. Memory tried to sweep her into its thrall, but she squashed it ruthlessly. There was a time and place for that, and this was neither.

With a quiet sigh, she settled in to wait. Might as well make small talk, keep the bloodied guy conscious.

Tipping her head, she chatted up the man whose blood was drying on her hands. "Hey kid. What's your name?"

He looked up at her with blue eyes gone dilated with pain, unclenched his jaw and answered with admirable stoicism, "Montgomery, ma'am."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Shepard." For some reason, he laughed a little at that. Shepard gave a relieved half-smile; if he could laugh, his lungs were probably clear. "You're gonna be fine. Looks like a through-and-through … and through, again. One bullet, four holes. You're a damn overachiever, Montgomery."

"Hoo-rah, ma'am." His gaze slipped past her to the two shirtless giants looming over them. A weak chuckle made it past gritted teeth. "At least the view is nice."

Finch blushed so intensely that the red covered him from brow to bellybutton, but he held his position in silence. Vega, however … "I'm feeling downright objectified, here."

Shepard snorted, "Can you blame him? The man's injured, LT. Not dead." She was gratified to see a smirk curve Vega's cheek.

Montgomery chuckled, then groaned against the pain. "Think my ribs are broken."

"Probably," Shepard eased the pressure slightly on the wound over his ribcage. No sense in hurting the man more than he already was. "That bullet was moving awfully fast, considering the distance."

She glanced up automatically, talk of the shot drawing her eyes to follow her mental map of the bullet’s trajectory without really expecting to see anything. And yet they did, prompting her to say, with the ice that slid down her spine chilling her voice, “James. Might want to have the teams push those perimeter sweeps out a few hundred meters.” 

He frowned a glance at her, then followed her gaze to the trunk of the tree that she and Montgomery were hunkered behind. To the bright splinters of living wood. To the two fresh bullet holes, one slightly higher than the other. In unison, Vega and Shepard turned to follow the trajectory from the tree trunk to two fresh gouges in the dirt several meters away. The bullets that had missed her and Montgomery had just kept on flying till they found targets. And then kept flying after that.

Vega let out a low, impressed whistle before clicking into comms and advising teams about the distance change. Fresh tension strained across mile-wide shoulders as he returned to his vigil. Without looking at her, he asked, "Think the shooter's done?"

"Sure hope so," Shepard drawled, "or we're gonna need to find bigger trees to hide behind."


End file.
